President Trump is planning to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals in New York City between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs on June 8, according to sources familiar with the plans.
The president, a native New Yorker and self-described Knicks fan, said he was invited to attend a Knicks playoff game by the team’s owner, James Dolan, who has donated to Mr. Trump’s political campaigns.
CBS News has reached out to the White House and Madison Square Garden for comment. News of Trump’s planned attendance was first reported by The New York Post and The Athletic.
The Knicks won Game 1 of the finals in San Antonio Wednesday night, 105 to 95.
Law enforcement has been meeting and working on heightened security for the event, according to one law enforcement source. The arena is in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and sits above Penn Station, a major transit hub.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also plans to attend Game 3, according to the New York Post. He has said that if he does, he will attend separately from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump told reporters in May that he planned to attend Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers. But there was no Game 5 because the Knicks swept the series in four games.
“[Dolan’s] entitled to a good team because he’s suffered a little bit,” Trump said in a May New York City radio interview, referencing the Knicks’ lousy record in recent decades.
Asked Wednesday about how the league prepares for “unique people” coming to championship games, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made a reference to the president’s possible plans to attend.
“What’s really so special about sports in our society — and it’s a little bit of a cliché — but our increasingly divided society — and that goes to people who will be attending the first home game at Madison Square Garden — it truly brings people together,” Silver said. “It creates a sense of connectivity among people.”
Mr. Trump has attended numerous big sporting events throughout his second term at the White House, from the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans to this year’s College Football Playoff National Championship game in Miami.
Former President Barack Obama was the last sitting president to attend an NBA game, when he saw his hometown Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015.
But Mr. Trump’s attendance at an NBA game is notable, given his past support of the league as a New York City businessman — and his criticism of it once he was in the White House.
Throughout his first term, Mr. Trump routinely criticized NBA players who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
“People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA. Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back,” he wrote in September 2020.
Trump also feuded publicly with NBA superstar LeBron James, after the White House withdrew an invitation to the 2017 NBA champion Golden State Warriors. The Warriors’ best player, point guard Stephen Curry, was noncommittal about attending the traditional championship visit to the White House.
“U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” James wrote. James has endorsed all of Mr. Trump’s Democratic presidential opponents: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
After a CNN interview with James, Mr. Trump tweeted that James “was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do.”
“I like Mike!” Mr. Trump wrote, in reference to the public debate over whether James or Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.
And he claimed Warriors coach Steve Kerr and former Spurs coach Gregg Popovich were hypocrites, after they refrained from criticizing China amid a backlash over former Houston Rockets owner Daryl Morey’s show of support for Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters.
“They talked badly about the United States. But when they talk about China, they don’t want to say anything bad,” Mr. Trump said in October 2019. “I thought it was pretty sad, actually, to see them pandering to China. It will be very interesting.”
Spurs’ star Victor Wembanyama, who was born and raised in France, has been critical of the president’s immigration policies throughout his second term.
“Every day I wake up and see the news and I’m horrified. I think that it’s crazy that some people make it sound like it’s acceptable, like the murder of civilians is acceptable,” Wembanyama said in January, after the shootings of two civilians, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Mr. Trump’s relationship with the NBA was not always fraught.
Before his first term in the White House, Mr. Trump was a big fan of both the NBA and James.
In 2012, he posted that “as one of Miami’s largest landowners,” he was rooting for then-Miami Heat player James and then congratulated them on their NBA championship that year. “Lebron’s time is now! @KingJames,” Trump wrote. He also congratulated the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 after their championship win.
And in New York, he was a courtside staple for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden for multiple playoff games throughout his decades in the city. He attended Game 3 of the 1994 NBA Finals, where the Knicks lost to a different Texas team: the Houston Rockets.
Mr. Trump was also part of a 2010 recruiting campaign organized by Dolan to lure James to join the Knicks, according to journalist Pablo Torre.
“The real winners of the world want to be here. They come here, they want to come to New York,” Trump said in the video. “This is the place the real winners want to be.”
The Associated Press noted that during a halftime interview at a 2010 Knicks game, Mr. Trump declined to rule out a run for the presidency in 2012 (or an appearance on “Dancing with the Stars”).
In 2012, he supported the “Linsanity” run of former New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin. Mr. Trump last posted on the Knicks in December 2013, when the team had five wins and 15 losses.
“It’s amazing how badly the Knicks and [Brooklyn] Nets are playing. Everybody predicted they would be top teams with all of the money spent. Too bad!” he wrote on Twitter.
